


Magical Discoveries

by AtowncalledMalec



Series: Tentacletober [16]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, malec - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mentions of Ragnor Fell, Tentacles, in danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 18:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21081479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtowncalledMalec/pseuds/AtowncalledMalec
Summary: When Magnus had returned from his crazy night out with Ragnor, a little battered and bruised, Alec had thought that a couple of bandages and a kiss better would fix everything. It didn't.This work is not to be reposted anywhere else or translated without my permission.





	Magical Discoveries

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Bandage and A Kiss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20876933) by [AtowncalledMalec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtowncalledMalec/pseuds/AtowncalledMalec). 

> Prompt #16 Tentacles In Peril
> 
> This is a continuation of: A Bandage and A Kiss, part 4 of the challenge.

Alec's eyes almost started to cross after another hour of reading reports. They were boring and it was late. 

Magnus tossed and turned a little beside him on the couch so Alec locked his ipad and set it aside. The water that he had set down for Magnus was probably a little stale by now so he gently moved Magnus' head from his lap to retrieve a fresh one and turn out all the lights for the night. 

Alec once again grinned as he filled a fresh glass with water, remembering Ragnor's antics. The Warlock was hilarious. Readying himself to carry his own warlock to bed, he returned to the living room 

The smile slid off of Alec’s face when he saw Magnus’ uninjured tentacle thrashing around, smacking Magnus in the face. “Magnus?” he asked. The glass slipped from his hand when the tentacle started waving erratically, as though it was trying to beckon him. 

Crossing the room in an instant, Alec’s stomach lurched when he saw the gray pallor of Magnus’ skin and the sweat that poured down his face. Lifting Magnus’ eyelid, he found Magnus’ glamour gone, the pupil large and unresponsive.

Alec snatched his phone from his pocket and dialed Catarina’s number as he checked Magnus’ pulse, willing her to pick up. The pulse beating under his fingertips would have been a relief if it wasn’t going so fast.

“Pick up, Catarina,” Alec muttered, panicking when Magnus started jerking on the couch. When she didn’t pick up, he set his phone on speaker, redialing her number. He thought through Magnus’ story, wondering if he’d missed something earlier on. Rolling Magnus onto his side, he found no other injuries but Magnus’ tentacle was trying to get his attention again.

When the tentacle tapped one of Magnus’ injured tentacles, Alec peeled back the bandages. His heart almost stopped when he saw a green, vein-like rash creeping up Magnus’ tentacle, the wound oozing acidic green looking puss. 

At first, Alec thought it had something to do with the werewolf, that the wolf must have been an alpha and had infected Magnus with one of those alpha bites. Until he remembered that that would only infect another alpha. And this wound looked more like a slice than a bite. 

“Seelie magic,” Alec muttered. Catarina still hadn’t answered her phone. It just kept going straight to voicemail. Trying again, Alec left his phone on the arm of the couch and dashed into Magnus’ potion room, looking through the shelves for anything that might help. When he couldn’t find anything, he grabbed an armful of books and carried them through to the living room.

“Magnus, I need you to wake up and tell me which one will help,” Alec said, trying to keep the panic from his voice as he dropped the spellbooks in a heap next to the couch. “Magnus! Wake up!” he yelled.

Magnus’ uninjured tentacle slammed down on one of the books, entitled: Flora and Fauna.

Yanking the book from the pile, Alec paled. It was as thick as his wrist. He quickly started leafing through the pages until the tentacle flipped the book over and banged on it. Starting again, from the back, he got through fourteen pages before he found a picture of Magnus’ rash and a list of potion ingredients to counteract it. 

Pressing a kiss to the tentacle, Alec heaved himself up off of the floor and dashed back into Magnus’ potion room. Scanning the potion, he almost wept with relief when he found that it didn’t require any magic. All he had to do was follow the instructions.

Alec set the book down on Magnus’ workbench and dashed back into the living room. He scooped Magnus up in his arms and carried him into the potion room. Not an easy feat when he had several long, limp tentacles to deal with, each of them looking as pale as Magnus did.

Magnus’ tentacle cleared the desk with one sweep when Alec reached it and set Magnus down. Thankfully, the jerking had stopped. Worryingly though, Magnus’ breathing sounded labored. 

Leaving Magnus’ tentacle to wrestle the rest of them into a comfortable position, Alec scooped up the spell book and read through the list of ingredients and the method before searching through the bottles and jars on the shelves. For one ingredient, Seelie hair, he had to dash to the extra shelves in the hallway by the front door, thanking the angel when he found it. 

For the last, clove oil, Alec had to rummage through Magnus’ bathroom cabinets. Once his arms were full of jars, he ran back into Magnus’ potion room and set it all down on the workbench.

Without magic to heat a small cauldron up, Alec yanked his stele out and carved a heat rune onto the bottom of it. The metal heated quickly, almost burning his hands. 

Alec read through each step twice as he started throwing ingredients into the pot, ensuring he stirred it the exact number of times when he dropped the dandelion leaves into the potion, double-checking the number of drops of clove oil that was required.

When Alec crushed seventeen moth wings into a fine powder, he imagined it was the Seelie Knight's face he was grinding into the stone bowl. He was pretty sure the Seelie Queen would have something to say about the ingredient but right then, he didn’t care. He poured the powder into the cauldron, gladly imagining slipping weed killer into the court’s water supply. 

Alec carved a second heat rune into the side of the cauldron when he added the final ingredient, the Seelie hair. The instructions said to heat it to 400° for three minutes before he removed the heat. Without a thermometer, he had to hope the second rune was enough.

Alec used the three-minute window to check Magnus over. He stroked his fingers over Magnus’ uninjured tentacle, trying to reassure it with a touch that they would be okay. Yanking his shirt off, he used it to mop up Magnus’ sweaty face, forcing his panic down. He refused to acknowledge the voice in the back of his head that asked what if…?

When his three minutes were up, Alec turned from his pale boyfriend and transferred the potion to a cold cauldron, willing it to cool down quickly. At least it was the correct color, a vibrant, healthy-looking green. Like freshly cut grass.

Unlike the sickly green puss that still leaked from Magnus’ wound. For a moment, Alec feared that Magnus would lose his tentacles. 

The potion was complete. It just needed to cool down enough that he could rub it into Magnus’ wound. Unraveling the rest of the bandages on the other tentacles, he discovered that three other wounds had festered in the same way with the same rash spreading up Magnus’ tentacles. 

Alec fetched a fresh bowl of water from the kitchen and once again cleaned Magnus’ wounds.  _ So much for the vodka, _ he thought. Then again, vodka wouldn’t work against Seelie magic. The ones that weren’t infected, he bandaged with fresh bandages.

The potion had cooled enough by the time Alec had finished cleaning the wounds. Reaching into the cauldron, and not giving a fuck that he didn’t have gloves, he scooped a handful of green paste out of the pot and rubbed into the wounds. He held his breath, prepared for the worst.

Thankfully, Magnus’ breathing settled almost immediately. So alec scooped more out of the cauldron and rubbed it into the wounds, piling it thickly onto Magnus’ tentacles. When he’d smeared as much as he could on the wounds, he dipped the bandages into the potion for good measure and wrapped the wounds up with the soggy material. 

Alec didn’t know how long it would take for Magnus to wake so he scooped his boyfriend up and carried him to his bedroom. Tucking Magnus and all of his tentacles into the bed was almost impossible but he managed to finally wrestle them all under the covers and pull Magnus’ favorite chair up to the side of the bed.

Taking Magnus’ uninjured tentacle in hand, Alec stroked his fingers over it, watching his boyfriend like a hawk. “It’ll be okay. You’ll be fine,” he whispered to the tentacle when he felt it shaking in his hand.

Alec didn’t know how long had passed when his eyelids started to droop. The last thing he thought before he lay his head down to rest his eyelids for a moment, was that Magnus would kill him for the mess he’d left in his wake. But he was too tired to care. He would just be thankful that Magnus was awake. 

**

A slamming door jolted Alec awake what felt like a few minutes later but was actually hours, he realized when he saw the bright morning sun filter in through the open curtains. A panicked voice cut through the haze that had filled his brain.

“Magnus? Magnus?” Catarina burst into Magnus’ bedroom, skidding to a stop when she saw Magnus in the bed, Alec blinking at her. 

“Thank the angel!” Alec yelled, jumping to his feet and dragging Catarina over to the bed. “I tried to call you but you weren’t picking up,” he said.

“I was dealing with Ragnor. I wouldn’t have even known about Magnus if I hadn’t found his wallet in Ragnor’s coat pocket,” Catarina said, scanning Magnus with her magic. She sagged with relief when she found all of his vitals were healthy. 

The relief turned to shock when Catarina found the bandaged tentacles. Peeling the bandages back, she marveled at the sight of Magnus’ rash-free tentacles. “How?” she asked.

Alec explained what had happened and about the potion, leading Catarina into Magnus’ potion room when she asked him to show her.

Catarina went through all of the ingredients, listening to Alec’s explanation of everything that he had done. Picking the cauldron up, she sniffed it and scooped up some of the leftover paste, rubbing it between her fingers. She quirked an eyebrow at Alec when she found the two runes carved into the metal.

“It said 400° but I didn’t know how hot one rune would make it so I used two,” Alec said, praying that he hadn’t fucked up.

“Two runes would be about the equivalent of 800°,” Catarina calculated, staring at Alec. The fear that spread over his face had her reaching out. “Hey, you did well. More than well. This is an advanced potion, everything has to be precise. You did amazingly well for your first potion,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“Except the part where I burned it,” Alec said, silently chastising himself. A loud groan cut off whatever Catarina was about to say. Dropping her hand, he bolted for Magnus’ room. Relief reigned supreme when he saw that Magnus was awake.

“What happened?” Magnus asked, feeling like his head and mouth had been stuffed with cotton wool. “Catarina?” he asked when he saw his friend enter his bedroom.

“Alec saved your life, you stupid idiot!” Catarina said, slumping down onto the side of the bed that Alec hadn’t claimed. “You shouldn't even be awake yet,” she said, checking Magnus’ vitals once more.

“Huh?” Magnus asked, looking from Catarina to Alec. When he saw the shrug of Alec’s shoulders, he turned back to Catarina. 

“Alec brewed his first potion last night. And made his first magical discovery. You should still be out of it for another 24 hours. It seems that doubling the heat on the potion reduces the time it takes to take effect by half,” Catarina said, flashing a tired smile at Alec. 

“I’ll have to run some tests but it looks like you’ve added to our vast stores of knowledge, Alec,” Catarina said, smiling when Alec blushed. He was being far too modest and she intended to make him see what he had done for her friend. “Lucky you were here. If you hadn’t been, Magnus would have lost more than his tentacles. He would have lost his life.”

“Alexander…” Magnus trailed off, lost for words. He reached out to cup Alec’s jaw but his tentacles beat him to it. The sensation of Alec leaning into his tentacles shot down each one of them. “We’re very grateful,” he said, promising Alec to show him just how grateful he was with a look.

“You might not be thanking me when you see the state of your potion room,” Alec muttered under his breath.

Cat decided to fill them in on what had happened when she heard Alec’s reply. 

“Ragnor turned up at my place in the middle of the night, feverish and muttering some nonsense bout a flea-bitten whore. When he collapsed, I found a few slices on his arms and a rash spreading over his skin. He passed out when I brewed the potion. Nice touch with the bandages, by the way,” Catarina said to Alec before continuing.

“If I hadn’t found some of your stuff in his pockets, Magnus, I wouldn’t have even known you were with him. When I checked my cell, I saw six missed calls from Alec, fearing the worst. But he did well,” Catarina said with a smile. She had left Ragnor sleeping to dash over as quickly as she could. Only to find that Magnus was fine.

Alec felt his face flush. He was just glad Magnus was okay. The tentacles that brushed over his face and down his arms certainly seemed to be okay now.

“I’ll leave you to it. I need to check on Ragnor. But you will call me if anything else happens, won’t you, Magnus!” Catarina said, eyeing Magnus’ tentacles. She had been friends with Magnus long enough to recognize that the appendages wanted to be alone with Alec, her cue to leave.

“Mhm,” Magnus muttered, barely looking away from Alec to answer her. He had saved his life. With a potion, no less. He beckoned with several tentacles when he heard the front door slam.

Alec climbed onto the bed with Magnus, too tired to do anything other than snuggle into the pile of arms and tentacles. Magnus could show him his gratitude later. Right then, all he wanted to do was sleep.

Magnus let out a small chuckle when he heard the soft snores emanating from his boyfriend. He combed a tentacle through Alec’s hair while the shadowhunter slept, thinking of the many ways he could thank Alec for his life.


End file.
